If you’re among the two-thirds of Americans who struggle with weight, you may consider food an unavoidable enemy. The variety of processed eats that surround us 24-7 not only pack on pounds, but can also lead to heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and even dementia. According to Dr. Mark Hyman, creator of the UltraMetabolism Diet, simply by eating the right foods, you can boost your metabolism and improve your health. In this LifeScript exclusive, he shares his 9 steps for a slimmer you…

If food is a source of anxiety and guilt, not pleasure, best-selling diet expert Hyman has the antidote. In his latest book, The UltraMetabolism Cookbook (Scribner, 2007), Hyman serves up a culinary cure in 200 easy-to-follow recipes designed for “automatic weight loss.” Each recipe contains carefully chosen ingredients that can help ignite the body’s natural fat-burning ability.

“I wanted to create a fabulous cookbook of delicious, fresh, wonderful foods that didn’t include gluten and dairy,” Hyman tells LifeScript. The reason? For many people, food sensitivities caused by gluten and dairy products create inflammation in the body, which in turn causes insulin resistance and, ultimately, obesity. “I’m not saying everyone should be gluten- and dairy-free, but many people have unrecognized, hidden reactions to these foods.”

That’s especially true in the U.S., he says, where whole, locally-grown foods are often difficult to find on grocery shelves. “When you go to Europe and have gluten and dairy, it’s different,” he says. “Eating cheese from some guy’s local cow that eats the grass – no hormones or antibiotics – is a different molecule combination.”

Fresh, natural foods kick-start your metabolism and heal your body. By contrast, he says, processed foods that are high in trans fats and sugars rev up your disease and weight gain genes. “The basic message is if you want to get thin you have to get healthy,” Hyman says. “The same things that make people sick are the same things that make people fat.”

In UltraMetabolism: The Simple Plan for Automatic Weight Loss (Scribner, 2006), Hyman explains how the right foods maximize your body’s potential for weight loss. “UltraMetabolism was an educational book, the owner’s manual for your body,” Hyman says. “This cookbook is an extension of that.”

The UltraMetabolism Cookbook features a 62-page primer on the diet program. Included is a review of Hyman’s seven metabolic keys to health and well-being. Among them: the need to subdue stress, because the body stores calories and conserves weight in such periods; the need to control inflammation, the root of disease and weight gain; and the importance of taking proper care of your liver so it can efficiently metabolize sugars and fats. (See related article: The UltraSimple Diet)

These steps embrace a new nutritional science called “functional medicine” that focuses on the underlying problems that cause weight gain and poor health.

Implementing the plan is simple. Hyman advises people to eat a colorful variety of fruits and vegetables. Why? Because “phytonutrients” – the color pigments found in vegetables and fruits – are powerful disease-reversing and age-defying compounds that our bodies crave.

“Phytonutrients are more important than vitamins and minerals,” Hyman says, “They’re powerful antioxidants that regulate inflammation and gene function. It’s quite astounding how it all works.”

Fortunately, eating for health and weight loss doesn’t mean you have to eat boring, plain food. The cookbook includes recipes for some luxuriously rich dishes, including Chicken Cutlets with Cornmeal Crust and Cilantro Buttermilk Dressing, Wild Salmon Cakes with Asian Cabbage Slaw, and Soy Nut Pancakes with Strawberry-Banana Sauce.

“If people just eat real food, they don’t have to worry about counting fat,” Hyman says. “They don’t have to count carbohydrates. They don’t have to count calories.” All you need to do is eat and your body will begin realigning to health. (See related article: 7 Secrets to Revving Up Your Metabolism)

In fact, Hyman says, cravings for refined foods and sugars will likely fade within the first couple of days. “What you put in your mouth controls your hormones and your neurotransmitters,” he says. “You put in different information, you’re going to get different messages in your neurotransmitters immediately. So, actually, it’s not that hard.”

4. Remove all gluten, dairy and eggs in your diet for three weeks, then add them back and measure how your body feels to determine if you if you have sensitivities and/or inflammatory reactions to these foods.

5. Pay attention to the colors you eat. “Eat a rainbow of color: blue, green, yellow, orange, red, purple… and I don’t mean Skittles or M&Ms,” Hyman says. Colorful whole foods are the source of “all the vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients that run your metabolism and keep you healthy.”

6. Eat early and eat often. Begin with a daily breakfast that includes protein, whether it’s a protein shake, eggs or a whole grain, gluten-free cereal with nuts. “There’s a real need for eating something with protein, which regulates the amino in acids in your brain,” Hyman says.

That, in turn, communicates with your body’s appetite control center, which shuts down your hunger system. “You won’t be hungry until lunch,” Hyman says. “But if you start with a cup of coffee and big bagel or muffin you’ll be starving by 11 a.m. and craving sugar, even if it’s an 800-calorie meal.”

7. Don’t eat late. Curb your desire to snack before bedtime. “When you eat at night, particularly two to three hours before bedtime, you store the food you’re eating. That’s how they make sumo wrestlers fat.”

8. Exercise daily. Even a 30-minute walk once a day will keep you far healthier than a sedentary lifestyle. If possible, exercise in the morning to ensure you’ll get it done. But any time of day is a good time to move, Hyman says.

9. Take a quality multivitamin each day.

By incorporating these healthy habits into your life, as well eating the right foods, Hyman says you can reprogram your body to lose weight. “The payoff is you don’t feel deprived, hungry or tired. You feel full of energy, the weight comes off and many other chronic problems go away,” Hyman says. “The thing most people tell me is, ‘Doc, I didn’t know how badly I was feeling until I was feeling so good.’”

Food is medicine. That's the message from renowned nutritionist Joy Bauer. In her groundbreaking new book Food Cures, she reveals the foods that manage, treat and even cure common health concerns such as arthritis, heart disease, diabetes and more. Do you have the prescription for better health? Take this food quiz with facts from Bauer's book and find out.